4of18La Iglesia Del Pueblo, a non-denominational spanish-language church in Pasadena is launching an english-language service with Rev. Ruben Villarreal preaching on May 21, 2014, in Pasadena, Tx.Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

5of18Roberto Ruben Villarreal, wife Rosalinda Villarreal, and son Ruben Villarreal, greet children, teachers and parents while they make their way to children's bible class during a weekday Spanish service at La Iglesia Del Pueblo on May 21, 2014, in Pasadena, Tx. La Iglesia Del Pueblo, a non-denominational spanish-language church, is launching an english-language service.Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

12of18The congregation kneels and prays by the altar after receiving a blessing from Pastor Roberto Ruben Villarreal during a weekday service at La Iglesia Del Pueblo on May 21, 2014, in Pasadena, Tx. La Iglesia Del Pueblo, a non-denominational spanish-language church, is launching an english-language service.Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

13of18Worshipers are blessed by Rosalinda Villarreal during a weekday Spanish service at La Iglesia Del Pueblo on May 21, 2014, in Pasadena, Tx. La Iglesia Del Pueblo, a non-denominational spanish-language church, is launching an english-language service.Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

There's a certain severity to the old brick church on Pasadena's gritty north side. There are no altar crosses, no fancy stained-glass windows. Linoleum covers the floors.

But don't be fooled by the plain surroundings. La Iglesia del Pueblo, worshippers will tell you, brims with spirit. It's a home of the unexpected, a place of surprises, a backdrop for miracles.

On an otherwise humdrum Thursday evening, hundreds packed the chapel to sway, clap, sing and beat tambourines as the church band launched into an amplified Spanish anthem to the Almighty. In the front row, a middle-aged man, ecstatic with spirit, burst into a spontaneous dance, wildly waving a blue-and-white Israeli flag whose star is emblematic of Christianity's Old Testament roots.

Led by Roberto Villarreal, a 70-year-old welder-turned born-again preacher, and his 38-year-old son, Ruben, who holds master's degrees in business and psychology, the church routinely draws more than 2,000 worshippers to its Sunday services. Grown from the elder Villarreal's hardscrabble itinerant tent ministry of the late 1970s, La Iglesia del Pueblo now operates eight religious radio stations, a television station and a school offering pre-kindergarten to high school instruction.

In July, the church will launch an English- language ministry, targeting both the acculturated children of its Spanish-speaking congregation and English-speaking residents of a neighborhood now largely Hispanicized.

Intersecting trends

Iglesia del Pueblo, housed in a white-steepled brick edifice that once sheltered Pasadena's First Baptist Church, reflects two striking trends, one local, one national. The first reflects the growth of the industrial Houston suburb's Hispanic population, which increased by more than 24,000 residents in the decade ending in 2010. Today, Pasadena is 62 percent Hispanic.

The second reflects Hispanics' falling away from Catholicism, a trend recently documented in a Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project report. The study found that only 55 percent of Hispanics studied were Catholic, down from 67 percent four years ago. Twenty-two percent identified as Protestants, with 16 percent saying they were evangelicals.

"On average," the report said, "Hispanic evangelicals - many of whom identify as Pentecostal or charismatic Protestants - not only report higher rates of church attendance than Hispanic Catholics but also tend to be more engaged in other religious activities, including Scripture reading, Bible study groups and sharing their faith."

Iglesia del Pueblo, according to Ruben Villarreal, is a "Bible church," whose teachings represent a mixture of Baptist and Assemblies of God theology. As such, he acknowledged, its emotive expressions of faith have drawn members from Catholic and more liturgical Protestant denominations.

"They like the way we preach," said Villarreal, who has been active in the ministry for two decades. "I am a catholic, because that is the church of God, but I am not a Roman Catholic."

Lay ministry appealing

Evangelical churches like the one in Pasadena are "very attractive to the Latino," said Rudy Gonzalez, a professor of New Testament at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary's San Antonio campus.

The appeal, he said, is an outgrowth of the differing Latin American mission strategies of mainline Protestant churches and those with Pentecostal-like beliefs. The former, he said, often employed a "paternalistic" approach.

"Even when native leadership was built, it often still was under the view of the denomination back home," Gonzalez said. "It was viewed as something external to the people themselves. It wasn't necessarily viewed negatively, but it was something that was superimposed on the culture."

Pentecostal and related groups used "lay ministers from day one," Gonzalez said. "They grew indigenous leadership to take the reins of the ministry. They were more open to female leaders. It was a lot more egalitarian. People were given greater voice to participate, give testimony and sing. A lot of the communal worship is more uninhibited."

Ruben Villarreal concurred, describing Iglesia del Pueblo as a "church of the people."

"The ministers you see here are the same people you'll see at the gas station," he said.

Spontaneity is a hallmark of the church, where leaders don't even maintain formal membership rolls. Both of the ministers are self-taught.

"I learned from coming to church," Ruben Villarreal said, describing his father as "a visionary."

'A different person'

Roberto Villarreal said he was 30 years old, just washing his clothes at a coin-operated laundry, when he encountered God.

"It had to be divine," he said. "Some things are difficult to explain. Across the street, right on the corner, was a church tent. I had never been to a tent revival, so I thought I'd see what was going on. What was said, I don't know. But when I came out of there, I was a different person. I got a hunger to read the word of God. The Bible calls it being 'born again.' "

The elder Villarreal's newfound faith propelled him into the lay ministry, as he and his wife, Rosa­linda, launched a traveling tent ministry.

"My mother told him she was in favor of the idea if he first paid off the mortgage," Ruben Villarreal said. "He did, and they traveled with the tent to Austin, Victoria, one time to Florida, all around. My dad put up the tent himself. He was a hard worker."

On some nights the minister collected only 75 cents in donations. "Whatever God put in our hands," Roberto Villarreal said, "we tried to invest back in his kingdom to spread his message."

After a few years on the road, with three children in tow, the family settled in Pasadena. The first Iglesia del Pueblo started in 1981 in a storefront chapel with the Villarreal family as congregation.

Marked by miracles

Two years later, the church, with volunteer help from its growing congregation, built a larger home along Texas Highway 225. The construction, the younger Villarreal said, was marked by strange occurrences.

Once, he said, heavy rains drenched the neighborhood but left the work site bone dry.

Another time, he said, the elder Villarreal experienced a Pasadena version of the biblical miracle of loaves and fishes.

"My father had a stack of $1 bills that he used to buy supplies," he recalled. "If he needed lumber or PVC pipe, he'd just peel the ones off this stack. He never replenished it, but it never ran out. It was a miracle."

In ensuing decades, the church relocated twice more, moving into its current location, which it initially shared with the Baptist congregation, in 1997.

Roberto Villarreal downplays his role in the church's growth or in its upcoming Wednesday night English services.

"I serve," he said. "I am just a servant of the Most High God. My message has been that the Almighty Heavenly Father has made transformations in my life. What he can do for me, he can do for everyone. Everyone has hope."

Allan Turner, senior general assignments reporter, joined the Houston Chronicle in 1985. He has been assistant suburban editor, assistant state editor and roving state reporter. He previously worked at daily newspapers in Amarillo, Austin and San Antonio.